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“Please let him finish,” Patel said patiently.
“She’s also the sort of woman who enjoys making you want her, even if she intends to reject you,” Dhar said. He made a point of looking at Nancy. “And I would assume that, like her late aunt, she has a caustic manner. She would always be ready to ridicule someone, or some idea—anything.”
“Yes, yes,” said Dr. Daruwalla impatiently, “but don’t forget, she is also a starer.”
“Excuse me—a what?” asked Detective Patel.
“A family trait—she stares at everyone. Rahul is a compulsive starer!” Farrokh replied. “She does it because she’s deliberately rude but also because she has a kind of uninhibited curiosity. That was her aunt, in spades! Rahul was brought up that way. No modesty whatsoever. Now she would be very feminine, I suppose, but not with her eyes. She is a man with her eyes—she’s always looking you over and staring you down.”
“Were you finished?” the deputy commissioner asked Dhar.
“I think so,” the actor replied.
“I never saw her clearly,” Nancy said suddenly. “There was no light, or the light was bad—only an oil lamp. I got just a peek at her, and I was sick—I had a fever.” She toyed with the bottom half of the ballpoint pen on the table, turning it at a right angle to her knife and spoon, then lining it up again. “She smelled good, and she felt very silky—but strong,” Nancy added.
“Talk about her now, not then,” Patel said. “What would she be like now?”
“The thing is,” Nancy said, “I think she feels like she can’t control something in herself, like she just needs to do things. She can’t stop herself. The things she wants are just too strong.”
“What things?” asked the detective.
“You know. We’ve talked about it,” Nancy told him.
“Tell them,” her husband said.
“She’s horny—I think she’s horny all the time,” Nancy told them.
“That’s unusual for someone who’s fifty-three or fifty-four,” Dr. Daruwalla observed.
“That’s just the feeling
she gives you—believe me,” Nancy said. “She’s awfully horny.”
“Does this remind you of someone you know?” the detective asked Inspector Dhar, but Dhar kept looking at Nancy; he didn’t shrug. “Or you, Doctor—are you reminded of anyone?” the deputy commissioner asked Farrokh.
“Are you talking about someone we’ve actually met—as a woman?” Dr. Daruwalla asked the deputy commissioner.
“Precisely,” said Detective Patel.
Dhar was still looking at Nancy when he spoke. “Mrs. Dogar,” Dhar said. Farrokh put both his hands on his chest, exactly where the familiar pain in his ribs was suddenly sharp enough to take his breath away.
“Oh, very good—very impressive,” said Detective Patel. He reached across the table and patted the back of Dhar’s hand. “You wouldn’t have made a bad policeman, even if you don’t take bribes,” the detective told the actor.
“Mrs. Dogar!” Dr. Daruwalla gasped. “I knew she reminded me of someone!”
“But there’s something wrong, isn’t there?” Dhar asked the deputy commissioner. “I mean, you haven’t arrested her—have you?”
“Quite so,” Patel said. “Something is wrong.”
“I told you he’d know who it was,” Nancy told her husband.
“Yes, sweetie,” the detective said. “But it’s not a crime for Rahul to be Mrs. Dogar.”
“How did you find out?” Dr. Daruwalla asked the deputy commissioner. “Of course—the list of new members!”
“It was a good place to start,” said Detective Patel. “The estate of Promila Rai was inherited by her niece, not her nephew.”
“I never knew there was a niece,” Farrokh said.
